127. According to expert witness Yáñez De La Cruz, the returns took place as follows: “45% returned between 1991 and 2009, 4% in 1991, 27% in 1992, 23% in 1995 and from 4 to 5% from 1996 to 2009.” 55% have still not returned; their reasons for not returning are: “78% were unable to do so because they did not have sufficient resources and because they had no one there, [and] 22% did not return because they were afraid.” 153 B. Arguments of the Commission and allegations of the parties 1) Arguments of the Inter-American Commission 128. The Commission considered it proved that, between December 11 and 13, 1981, an operation was conducted, mainly by the Atlacatl BIRI, with the support of other military units including the Salvadoran Air Force, in which successive massacres were perpetrated in seven places in the north of the department of Morazán. The massacres were committed with extreme cruelty, mainly using firearms, but also by beatings with sticks, slitting throats and even setting fire to places in which there were people who were still alive. According to the Commission, approximately one thousand people died in these events, without any indication that would suggest the possibility that the alleged events occurred in the context of a confrontation. The evidence available is consistent with a massive and indiscriminate attack on the civilian population. In addition, many people had been beaten and physically ill-treated before being killed. Owing to the nature of the events, it is not possible to have accurate information on the different acts of torture to which the victims were subjected. However, the Commission considered that just the accounts that refer to violent interrogations on supposed links with the guerrilla and the fact that they had witnessed the murder of their loved ones, their neighbors and friends, allow the conclusion to be reached that those who were killed had been victims of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the moments before their death. In addition, the Commission considered that, owing to the circumstances surrounding the massacre in the village of El Mozote, all those murdered there had been illegally and arbitrarily detained before their death. Consequently, the Commission concluded that the State of El Salvador was responsible for the violation of the rights to life and to personal integrity of the persons extrajudicially executed in the village of El Mozote, the canton of La Joya, the villages of Ranchería, Los Toriles, Jocote Amarillo, the canton of Cerro Pando and a cave on Cerro Ortiz. Additionally, the Commission argued that the State of El Salvador was responsible for the violation of the right to personal liberty of the victims extrajudicially executed in the village of El Mozote. 129. The Commission also argued that it had been proved that an alarming number of children had been murdered in the massacres of El Mozote and nearby places. Specifically, in the village of El Mozote, a first group of children had been taken with the men to a place where they had been detained and subjected to different acts of torture. Thus, the Commission argued that senior Salvadoran military commanders had not only omitted to adopt the necessary precautions to avoid the loss of the lives of children, but rather, at the highest level, had ordered their murder in order to achieve the goal of annihilating the entire civilian population of places where the guerrilla were perceived to be present. Therefore, the Commission concluded that, in addition to the violations of the rights to life, and to personal integrity and liberty, the State of El Salvador deliberately disregarded its obligation to provide special protection to children established in Article 19 of the Convention, in relation to Article 1(1) of this instrument, to the detriment of all the children who were extrajudicially executed in the massacres perpetrated in the village of El Mozote and nearby places. 130. The Commission also argued that, since many of the young women in the village of El Mozote had been taken to the outskirts of the village, specifically to “Cerro El Chingo” and “Cerro La Cruz” to be raped before their extrajudicial execution, the State of El Salvador was 153 Expert opinion on psychosocial impacts and recommendations for reparations in the case of “The Massacres of El Mozote and nearby places” provided by María Sol Yáñez De La Cruz, undated (evidence file, tome XVIII, annex 2 to the final written arguments of the representatives, folio 10527). 40